Professional tennis stars usually retire before they get to age 30. In fact, Austin’s Andy Roddick retired the day he turned 30.
But advocates of the sport say it’s one you can play for a very long time. And another Austin-based tennis star is doing just that – and encouraging others to as well.
Julie Thu played in the US Open and Wimbledon before she retired. But now she’s back in the sport and, in fact, the highest-ranked woman in her age group in both singles and doubles. She’s representing the USA in World Cup play in the ITF Masters World Championships in Japan this month.
Listen to the interview in the audio player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Tell me about the Masters Division in tennis. Who does that represent?
Thu with a 2022 award from USTA for hard clay court singles.
Julie Thu: The Masters Division technically starts at age 30 and over. And they have incremental age groups all the way up to 90. So every five years from 30 to 90.
And it attracts players who are done playing professionally or recreationally want to play against other people in their own age division. Play people your age with the same aches and pains as people age, you know. And especially when they get into the older divisions in the 70s and 80s, it’s very nice to be playing your peers. Even if on paper you have the same ability level, you want to play someone that’s your own age.
If I Google your name, it says “former” tennis player, but clearly that’s not the whole story. Why do you want people to know about playing tennis beyond what’s traditionally recognized as at a professional level?
It was such a big part of my life growing up. I played collegiately and then professionally. And then I hung my rackets up in my mid 20s when life got busy with work and children. And I didn’t really know that there was an avenue to compete competitively at a high level on the world stage.
And around my late 30s, someone told me about these age-level tournaments. I’ve been doing it for the last 10 years, and it’s added so much to my enjoyment of life, not only just rediscovering a part of my childhood that was so important to me, but also the health benefits that you get from tennis, as well as the community that I’ve built.
Tennis is touted as the sport of a lifetime, and it’s one of the few that you really can compete well into your senior years.
How did you first find tennis?
I started around 7 or 8, just hitting around with my parents in my hometown in East Texas. My older brother had started to play, and of course, I wanted to do what he was doing. So they introduced me to the sport and helped me fall in love with it and entered me into a few competitive tournaments early on, and I just got the urge and loved competing.
I loved being out there for an individual sport and the strategy involved, and I just kind of built from there.
I played all sports, really, until about seventh to eighth grade, you know, still had tennis year-round and then was experiencing success and decided to turn all my focus to tennis in high school.
What’s happening in Japan this month?
This is a cup competition between countries, very similar to the World Cup in soccer.
So I’m playing on Team USA for the 45s age division, and they’ve selected four girls based on ranking and results this year to represent them.
In the women’s 45 age division, there are 24 countries that are coming. So we’re going to compete in a team format against the other countries.
Are you hopeful to continue to play for a long time?
I am very hopeful, yeah. You know, as long as I can stay injury-free.
You have to manage your expectations as you age, but you know, it really does inspire me to stay fit and to stay focused and to keep at it.
And there’s been a lot of research and studies that have shown that tennis adds almost 10 years to a person’s life, someone who plays racket sports. And so, yeah, I hope to keep thriving and competing well into my older years.
There might be somebody listening who is kind of inspired by this. Maybe they played in high school or maybe they’d just been interested and thought maybe this is a sport they could take up. Is it too late to just go try it? Where would you begin?
Absolutely not.
I’m president of an organization called the National Women’s Tennis Organization, and we’ve built a community of players across the country who are competing in these age-level events.
And I talk to so many ladies who did not take up tennis till in their 40s or even their 50s. And they’ve had 30 or 40 years to play and compete and now they’re winning national titles and they’re playing on the Cup team representing the United States. So it’s never too late to start.
And the first thing is just get out there. Go get a racket. Sign up for a local clinic just at one of the public facilities and just grab a friend and go out and have fun and see where it builds from there.
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